Touma Kamijou had reached ground zero.
It was a corner of School District 7 he was familiar with. The tall buildings
were rather high-grade, famous department stores and corporation sites, for
the place to be called student-oriented. You could always find restaurants and
such inside the department stores in magazine columns. He didn't visit the
place every day, since it was out of the way of his school commute, but Kamijou
had come here several times to eat with Index (with absolutely no "mood" of
any kind involved).
School District 7 had both a high-quality feel like the Garden of Learning and
the more civilian smell like his own student dorm, and this corner was in one of
the more high-quality areas. Normally, during the day, many girls in Tokiwadai
Middle School and Kirigaoka Girls' Academy school uniforms would have been
walking around here.
It was a uniquely adult atmosphere that needed more than children to exist.
And now…
…like a collapsed sand castle, it was a pile of wreckage and debris.
"…"
Every single building about a hundred meters out from here had been
destroyed, mowed down. Not that it was a complete crater without even any
broken pieces remaining—no, it was a more disorderly disaster, like a giant had
used its arm to wrench each individual building free. On the other hand,
though, the buildings tilted diagonally and department stores with only their
first floors remaining were strangely vivid scars, and they shook Kamijou's
heart.
Vento of the Front.
There must have been a ton of people her special attack immobilized. And in
that situation, all these buildings had collapsed around them. He couldn't even
imagine how many people were buried in this mountain of wreckage. Rescue
teams were running late, but even if they got here, how many would they be
able to save?
His nerves felt numb.
With floaty movements, he stared at the center of ground zero.
There was an angel.
Her main body was the same size as a normal person. Her wings, however,
were enormous—so gargantuan they looked like they'd swallow up the person
inside them.
They gave off a dazzling light, seemingly enough to ward away all the gray
dust clouds and heavy rain. They ranged from ten to a hundred meters long.
They had no uniformity; they looked like sharply edged weeds sprouting every
which way. Each of the dozens of giant wings connected to the back of the
small-statured girl.
The angel was about a hundred meters off, slowly moving to the size relative
to him. She was simply walking with her two slender legs, but every time her
foot hit the ground, there was a dull thump.
The girl.
Hyouka Kazakiri.
Her hair was long and pretty, with a little bit of brown mixed into its black. It
mostly reached down to her waist, but one tuft of it was tied to the side and
hung down. Her skirt, part of her blue school-designated uniform, looked timid,
its length unchanged. Atop her blue blazer was an accenting red necktie.
It should have been a girl Touma Kamijou knew. It should have been a
fainthearted, blubbering girl, the kind who would hesitate to punch even a
villain.
But…
Right now, what Kamijou was seeing was clearly different from that image of
Hyouka Kazakiri. Her head hung low, lips half-open and tongue hanging out. Her
eyes were wide open, and they shook irregularly, like a mechanical lens reading
tiny letters. The rainwater on her face mixed with her drool, dampening the top
of her uniform. But even the slimy light and feel didn't move her an inch.
Dozens of giant wings. An inhuman atmosphere. A wall-like presence. It was a
lot like Misha Kreutzev. But the huge angel before him now was even more
unnatural, more twisted.
Her face held no emotion. Her uncannily wandering eyeballs shed no tears.
Something wasn't letting them shed any.
A kind of restriction.
Above her head was a ring, about fifteen centimeters across. The ring's
rotational speed changed in time with her footsteps, and its diameter kept
growing and shrinking. On the outer edge of the ring were several pencilshaped sticks pointing outward, which were quickly retracting and extending,
making click-click-clack-clack noises.
! I'm telling you I'll blow the damn monster away with its own
strength!!"
Kamijou listened to her speak. He clenched his teeth, glared straight at her,
and moved his lips.
"…Not happening."
He was struck by how unreasonable the combat conditions were. He didn't
even know if he could beat Vento in the first place, and now he had to protect
Kazakiri while he fought. To add to that, Kazakiri might not be harmless, either.
The insane sparks jolting from those wings would kill him in one shot if they hit
him in the back.
But Touma Kamijou clenched his right fist hard anyway.
And he spoke.
"…She's already been put in this situation by the higher-ups in Academy City,
controlling her limbs, staining them with blood, and even sealing away her
ability to ask for help or shed tears…And you think I'll let someone who just
waltzed on in here treat her like a monster and kill her?"
It didn't matter whether his words reached "her" or not. Kamijou had decided
to protect her. To make good on that decision, he now stood before Vento.
With the downpour soaking him and the giant angel behind him, continuing to
accept as many of the disadvantageous conditions as he could.
"Don't screw with me. The hell do you think a person's friends are?!"